The poor: Silent Minority

Today I want to share a topic that is rather close to me, Poverty. I choose to write about this because I am one of the 46 Million people who live under the poverty line here in America.

With the 2012 election season now in full bloom this is the best time to bring this issue to the forefront of our politics. Before I get into the politics and policy aspects of this, I want to share some of my personal story.

As a Michigan resident, I knew for a long time that we were the car making capital of the country. Detroit was the motor city, home of the big three. So much of our local economy was based on manufacturing, mostly car parts, but there were other industries too.

My first job out of high school was at Electrolux building refrigerators, my father worked his way up the ladder, from the factory to the office. From hourly to salary. No I didn't get any special treatment, nor did I want any. I worked as hard as any other person there. I was a temp for the summer, and ended up not getting asked to come back the next summer, (though I already had another job elsewhere) so it didn't bother me.

My next job was at a union shop making truck parts, hitches and bumpers for the big automakers. I worked there a good few years making good money, but health problems related from the smoke ended that as I was fired for too many health related absences, they no longer accepted doctors notes from numerous visits related to breathing trouble. I was also in school then and when I lost my job I had to drop out and now I still have the bill to pay for that.

A couple of minimum wage jobs later I found myself in a non union plastic injection molding plant working for $10 an hour.

What does my work history have to do with poverty?

Quite a bit actually.

Not because I had been part of the working poor, I made enough money in those jobs by myself to stay just over the poverty line, but because those jobs have become less and less available now. Electrolux moved to Mexico, leaving 3,000 people without work, the bumper shop went bankrupt and was bought out by a foreign corporation who closed at least one the two shops in the area, and everywhere else factory jobs have  reduced pay and benefits for workers, often relying on temp services that pay minimum wage up to $8.25 an hour for the same work I was paid $10/hr for years earlier.

Not to mention my last job laid me off after I was hurt during work hours, I was making around $9 building pontoon boats. I like many there got the job through a temp agency. After being hurt, and laid off, I realized the only chance I had for a better future was to try college again.

So I here I am, a college student, racking up debt, living with my wife on $12,000/yr with $93 a month in food stamps, sure I could be eligible for more, but I would have to drop school.

Like many using the safety net to get by, I worked for a living, paid into the system, have had some hard luck and health problems that have forced me to retrain and retool, not to mention take on massive debt, and turn down further assistance in order to be successful in the future.

Yet according to the GOP people like me who are poor are simply lazy, we just want our welfare checks so we don't have to work.

This leads me to a very excellent encounter that happened last night when I had the opportunity to speak to Tanya Wells on Facebook. For any of you #Uppers fans out there, you may have seen the wonderful segment in which she shares her story about going from $100k a/year to just $18k due to the recession. After seeing her story I noticed that we find ourselves in similar situations, having to depend on student loans, and food assistance while going to school and having to turn down other programs so we can continue training in an effort to get good middle class jobs when we graduate.

We also felt the same demonization from the political class, from being called lazy on twitter and on other social media, or that we should just try harder to find work, despite the fact that its hard to even get a call back from prospective employers. (My last interview was a couple weeks ago, damned if I didn't try to impress him with examples of my work.)

We also spoke about getting the rest of us poor people to band together to fight for the benefits that sustain hardworking people like us who are trying to get that training to get back in the job market. That involves voting, and becoming more involved in matters of policy, as well as fighting back against the rhetoric of being called welfare queens, lazy, & people who don't want to work but stay home, smoke pot and collect handouts from the government. Nothing could be further from the truth. I maintain honors in my classes and Mr. Wells, Tanya's husband is maintaining a 3.98 GPA!

It's these things people need to know.

So earlier I mentioned I would get into the policy aspect of poverty.

Well for starters the Romney/Ryan plan for the budget calls for cutting 62% of the funding for services that help people like me and Mrs. Wells, that includes food stamps, pell grants, and Medicaid. Not to balance the budget mind you, but for tax cuts for people like Romney. In fact Romney would benefit immensely from his own tax plan as he would only a pay a 0.82% tax rate.

So while the poor people like me, would bear the brunt of massive austerity, Romney would become that much richer. How does this happen?

Because people ignore the poor, we do not have money to contribute to superPACs, we do not have connections. It's also much easier to blame the poor for being poor, because people don't like to think they can become poor. People like to think "Hey I work hard, I won't lose my job if I keep working hard, those poor people didn't work hard enough so that's why they're poor, that wont be me." It's easier to demonize people than to fix the system, easier to be selfish than to to pay it forward and help those who need it.

Also take into account that because of Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich, many think the poor are just welfare queens, taking your hard earned money because they don't want to work.

This rhetoric works, it makes us turn on each other, while they shift more and more money to the top from everyone else, squeezing the middle class which makes them blame the poor even more. It's genius really, making the middle class and the poor fight while robbing us both to enrich the top.

This is why we need to stop fighting each other, and start protecting each other by ensuring safety net programs and encourage college training, and vocational schools so the poor can move up to the middle class, and the people who fall from the middle class can climb right back up. We can do this, we can afford it. After all we apparently can afford to subsidize oil companies that are the most profitable industry in the world right?

We also have to realize that we can all end up like Tanya and I, and only then will we elect those who will try to save the safety net for everyone.

GOP War on Women continues

If anything shows how little, old white guys know about the struggles of women in America, it's this asshole. Todd Akin.

Twitter has exploded today from Akins apparent "gaffe" where he said "“First of all, from what I understand from doctors, (pregnancy from rape) is really rare, If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Wow, how ignorant is this guy?

This little gem came from a discussion on KTVI-TV where Mr. Akin had been explaining his no exception policy on abortion. Yep, another one of these pro-family idiots who think that making women bear rape babies as well as banning contraception will help America become great again.

This is idiotic. The GOP says they are pro-life and pro-family, but they pass policies that hurt families, and demonize single mothers trying to raise the children they chose not to abort. Which is it GOP? Would you rather those single mothers abort their kids or support programs that prevent pregnancy, or in the event of it happening, aid for the child in the form of food stamps and welfare programs that keep those kids out of poverty.

Forcing a woman to have the rapists baby is a punishment for the woman, and for the unborn child too. I couldn't imagine growing up knowing my father was a monster, and that my mother never wanted me. It's such a complicated situation and it shouldn't be the choice of the state whether or not she should have that baby. This is big government at its worst.

How the people could have ever elect this Tea Party dick bag is something I cannot ever fathom.

It just seems like the GOP only cares about children while they're in the womb. Fertilized eggs are people, corporations are people, but women are not. What woman could ever vote for these misogynists?

Thankfully many women are taking notice, and even choosing president Obama over Mitt Romney in polls taken, they know what is at stake, their freedom of choice and control over their own bodies is on the line. I may not like abortion, hell I don't know any Liberal who does, but it is and should stay a legal, safe choice especially under the circumstances of rape and incest.

Because when you take a woman's right to make decisions for her own body, you take away her freedom, and her dignity. And that alone is worth fighting to protect.

*Addition*

So Akin immediately came out with a back-pedal of his legitimate rape comment, but I'm thinking the damage has already been done to this guys prospect for election. He'll be running against Claire McCaskill for the Missouri Senate seat in November, if he doesn't bow out that is. I'd actually like him for him to run, because he'll most likely lose, and lose hard, and if he somehow wins then well...Missouri apparently will deserve the misery this guy will bring. Sorry guys, but if you let these people in by staying home...

This is why it's so important to get out and vote, especially with so much on the line. We cannot let another year like 2010 happen where these TeaParty extremists can get in and bring our women back to 1850.

Another awesome fact about Akin is that apparently he's worked with now VP Paul Ryan to redefine rape, making this election even more crucial.

The thing is, that Akin is not a minority in the GOP, at least according to Democrat of California Jackie Speier. She's pretty sure that most Republicans think the same way as Todd Akin and Paul Ryan; that abortion should be illegal no matter the circumstance.

It's this anti-choice attitude in the Republican party that has led to extreme bills like the personhood bill, saying that a fertilized egg is a person with full constitutional rights, and that abortion is murder and so is emergency hormonal contraception. They also feel normal hormonal contraception should be banned as well as the IUD. The effects of these bills if passed would throw women back into the home as they would no longer have the freedom to choose when they want to have families, it throws up barriers to work and essentially puts them back into the home, "barefoot and pregnant", just what some of the good ol' boys want.

I cannot stress how important it will be to vote, even if you don't like the other person, just remember, it could be worse. You could end up with Todd Akin

Lyin' Ryan: Why the GOP goldenboy, is a hypocrite.

One week, it's been one week since the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's VP choice, and just like Sarah Palin, it seems Ryan has not been well vetted.

Which is why videos like this have been showing up lately.

Videos like these show how much Ryan was railing for stimulus during the last Administration to help his own district. There have also been letters to the energy department where Ryan asks for money from the stimulus to help create jobs.

I thought Paul Ryan hated stimulus. Apparently only when Barack Obama does it.

There are numerous articles and videos of Paul Ryan calling Keynesian economic measures a failure, and waste. Yet because of these measures and despite the debunked myths spread by the right. the economy dug itself out of a free-fall.

These Republicans just keep getting more brazen in their absolute hypocrisy. Yesterday Paul Ryan even made a nice trip to Florida to speak to some seniors, seemingly guaranteeing their Medicare benefits while throwing everyone under 55, under the bus. That is a Mitt Romney style pander, he learned from the best. What is worse about this, and Chris Hayes pointed this out on his show, that Medicaid under Romney/Ryan would be massively cut, and those same seniors he pandered to today, often rely on Medicaid to cover what Medicare does not.

Fail.

Paul Ryan is hypocritical in others way too. He once touted Ayn Rand as someone who got him into politics and helped form his belief system, as well as having his Catholic beliefs influence his policies. Both of which are absurd. Ayn Rand, was an Atheist, no problem there right, except that Paul Ryan is a Catholic, who believes that his religious morals should be a bigger part of government. Especially on matters of abortion and contraception. Which is completely the opposite of Rands view on religion.

Rand even states that, “[Faith] is a sign of a psychological weakness. . . I regard it as evil to place your emotions, your desire, above the evidence of what your mind knows.  That’s what you’re doing with the idea of God.”

When people began to point him out on his hypocrisy Ryan began to run from Ayn Rand, saying that he didn't know her philosophy until later and complete disagrees with her objectivism.

So what about his Catholic beliefs? You know the moral center of his policies. Like feeding the poor, clothing the naked blah blah blah. Surely he calls for increased benefits to help the poor like food stamps and unemployment insurance and medical care right? Except he doesn't. His plan cuts 62% of funding for programs that actively help the poor, and shifts the money into....tax cuts for people like Mitt Romney, who would pay a whopping 0.82% tax rate on his $20 million fortune.

Oops!

His budget is so out of step with the beliefs of the Catholic church that there are a group of Nuns,  have called his budget "immoral".

Go get him nuns.

So if Paul Ryan doesn't lead by his faith in the Church, or his so called admiration for Ayn Rand, who does he work for?

Those who pay him. The Koch Brothers, Karl Rove, and other super rich people who have nothing better to do than figure out ways to make more money off the backs of the poor and middle class.

At least there's good news for Paul Ryan, he has made a friend of Mitt Romney, who he shares so much in common with, at least after they both lose badly in November they'll have plenty of time to go Jet Ski-ing together, hell maybe Ryan can get Romney on the P90X program. Move over Arnold, here comes Muscle Mitt.

Mediscare? GOPs new lie

We all know the senior vote is extremely important, especially in key states like Florida. And we all know that there is one thing seniors left or right care about. Medicare.

One of the most popular of the new deal programs in existence. A long with Social Security, Medicare has always been in the forefront of issues with senior citizens. It's popular because it works. Since its inception medicare has always been a guaranteed benefit for those who have worked hard all of their lives and have been old enough to qualify.

With the inclusion of Paul Ryan on the Romney ticket the campaign has refocused onto "entitlement" spending, most notably Medicare.

What astounds me about this is that Romney and Ryan see this as their winning issue.

Huh!?

Yes, it's true. Romney and Ryan are now casting themselves as the saviors of Medicare, protecting it from the evil Obama and his socialist "Obamacare". Never mind the fact that Medicare IS socialism, but I digress. The thing about the Romney/Ryan plan for Medicare is nothing short of completely changing it, not for seniors of course but for people like me who are not yet seniors.

To back up their role as the saviors of Medicare they have sent out surrogates, like Tim Pawlenty and John Sununu (that is a fun name to say) to spread the new talking point that Obama stole $716 Billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare.

Without even touching on the racial angle of this obvious lie, I want to explain first why it is such a boldface lie.

Sununu says that it takes from seniors and cuts their benefits. Yeah, not really. Instead this $716 Billion is from projected cuts in the amount of over-payments to hospitals insurance companies that would have been made. The ACA actually limits over-payments and instead makes insurance companies and hospitals take less in Medicare reimbursement. They agreed to this because of the influx of new patients from the Mandate. But those pesky details never get in the way of a good lie.

So let me say this again, no reduction in benefits, decreased spending from no longer overpaying insurance companies and hospitals for your care, and other small cuts to eliminate waste.

On the other hand you have the Ryan Plan that turns Medicare into a voucher system (for those under 55) which will shift the burden of costs onto future seniors, like me.

I sincerely hope the current crop of seniors consider their grand kids on Nov, 6th, and send Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan a little message

Libertarians: GOP drones minus the culture war

It was only a matter of time until I came after the Ron Paul revolution. It's kind of sad because in quite a few ways libertarians are an ugly breed of both Liberals and Conservatives, shunned by Liberals and existing as the red headed stepchild of the conservative movement and yet, people my age seem to find them so endearing.

Libertarianism marries the best of the free thinking Liberal ideas of gay rights, anti-war, pro drug legalization, and get rid of big brother watching you and stay out my business sentiment. Because what Liberal enjoys being watched by the Government and harassed for no reason right? It also combines the worst of conservative top-down economics that have killed our economy, stalled wages, and polluted our air and water (see fracking) for 30 years.

The Libertarian premise is simple, cut taxes, cut government, let everyone do what they want, and somehow magically everyone becomes responsible, altruistic, wealthy and super happy.

Really?

Libertarianism is actually quite a selfish doctrine. The main tenet is about advancing the self and nothing else, no collective roads or bridges, everyone is out for themselves. If you Fuck up then its your fault, your responsibility, and if you need help that's just too bad because why should I give up what's mine to help you? Taxes are considered a punishment on everyone, and therefore should be as low as possible, for everyone.

Yeah, just what Exxon Mobil needs; another tax cut.

Libertarians believe that you alone have the power to make your own destiny as long as you work hard. If you succeed you did so because you were awesome, you work harder then others, you were smarter, and you had no one to thank for your success but you.

Let me a blow a hole in that load of BS

You do have the power to succeed, but you only learned what you needed to know to succeed by going to a school, maybe a public, maybe a private school. But you had a teacher that also went to school, spent his or her money on college to learn the things they ended up teaching you. Sometimes those teachers used their own money to provide supplies, sometimes they spent time with you after school to help you with those pesky geometry problems you had a hard time with. Sometimes they even inspired you.

Now we also cannot forget the school itself, built with the pure evil that is socialism. Its socialist buses picked you up from your house for free. The school had free water fountains, and heating in the winter. If you were poor you had free lunches. Remember those monkey bars you played on all the time? Socialism.

Odds are you lived on a street with a paved road that allowed you to get to your first job. You had electricity from power lines laid by the government, you had clean running water from public aquifers that you could drink and bathe in. You had inspectors making sure your food was not toxic or infected with E. Coli. If you own a business that uses the Internet, you should thank the Federal government for laying the foundation for it.

All of that stuff helped you survive, and thrive, so you could focus on learning and working hard to get where you are today. It's a collective effort, everyone gets the same basic foundation in which to succeed, of course people are more successful due to the effort they put in but we all have to pay for these simple things like roads, bridges, schools, firefighters, cops, teachers, food inspectors, power lines and all the other infrastructure we use.

The argument from Libertarians is "Why punish people for being successful." I ask, how is paying more taxes on having more money a punishment? If you have more money you're already better off than someone with less, so if we take a fair amount from someone with a larger income, and use it to help someone who has less live a better life, or become successful himself then what's the harm. It's not as if we ask millionaires to give up all their wealth in taxes, they're entitled to a large share of the wealth they earned.

But, and here's the but, the wealthy have more, and have used more resources to get wealthy. So why shouldn't they pay more? If you ask someone who makes 20 million a year to pay 5 million, they still have 15 million, that's an incredible amount of money. More than enough to survive extremely comfortably. Even if you ask them to pay 15 million out of 20 million in taxes, they still have 5 million. Compare that to the guy who makes $60,000 a year. That is over $4.4 Million a year more that the rich guy still has compared to the middle income guy. That is roughly 73 times more money a year that the wealthy person makes in the same amount of time. And that is even after taxing the shit of the rich guys initial 20 million.

Let that one sink in

After seeing those numbers I don't understand how anyone can see that a progressive tax system on the wealthy is punishment. Hell I wish I was rich, I'd gladly take that punishment if it meant I made 73 times more than a middle class wage earner!

Libertarianism is nothing but a right wing tool to bring in those people who uncomfortable with the GOPs culture war but want to continue the economic policies of more tax cuts for the wealthy and more deregulation. So why are so many kids my age enthralled at this? It's all about messaging, you tell these young college kids that they're awesome because they worked hard and tell them that they'd be rich if only the government would get out of their way. Throw in some stuff about Pot, and why they shouldn't have to help the lazy (poor) or the people who didn't save for retirement (seniors) and you get all these 20 somethings who can't wait to willingly fuck themselves over in the future because they think they know it all.

Well played Ayn Rand, well played.

Should The Presidency Require Business Experience?

In a word, No.

In two words, fuck no!

Let me explain why this makes no sense to me.

Conservatives argue that in order to be a good president that you must have a background in business, and some even say you need military experience.

That's utter crap, here's why.

Government is not a business, it doesn't run as a business and it shouldn't ever be run as a business. See people tend to forget that a government is really a contract between the government, and the governed.

Business however is different, it exists to make profit, usually by providing a good or service in exchange for something of value. They're not really similar at all.

To prove my point I turn to the founding fathers.

"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it."

John Adams: Thoughts on Government, 1776

I love that quote.

Business exists to enrich the owner of said business, or as John Adams says, the private interest of any one man, family, or class of men.

What I am saying is if government is ran by a businessman, and is run like a business, it wouldn't favor the common good, it would work for the interests of a few people, a few wealthy, powerful people.

That's called an Aristocracy.

Another difference between government and business is how they work. Businesses are run by a CEO, usually put there through a board of investors (this is obviously in the case of a large business) Those investors let the CEO do what he needs to do to make money and will not usually interfere too much so long as the business is profitable.

Government works through a careful system of checks and balances so no branch gains more power over the other, there is no de facto leader in a government as each branch depends on others in order to get things done. If the business loses money it cannot function, and must downsize or run the risk of not being able to pay its stockholders, creditors and workers. Government however is able to run a debt and continue, not indefinitely of course but nonetheless it can function while running a deficit without going under.

Of course it's best to run make a habit of running deficits, which is why we have taxes, unlike business. I think Mr. Hamilton addressed this one...

"As to Taxes, they are evidently inseparable from Government. It is impossible without them to pay the debts of the nation, to protect it from foreign danger, or to secure individuals from lawless violence and rapine."

Alexander Hamilton: Address to the Electors of the State of New York, March, 1801
So why shouldn't business experience be required to be president as Mr. Romney had once said? Because they are different. They are run differently and have different goals and ways to get there. One should never run government like a business, one should never even consider it, and one should most definitely NOT merge government with business.

I think there is a word for that.

Why Trickle Down equals Trickle Dumb

Of all the cracked out, nutty ideas that have been floated from the right wing, supply-side "voodoo" economics has to be the one that makes the least sense. Let's break down the simple premise here. Supply side economics simply states that if you give more money to people who are already fabulously wealthy, that will somehow cause the wealth fairy to sprinkle riches all over the rest of society and we'll all be happy. I'll tell you one thing, for the last thirty years we've been sprinkled with something from those at the top, and it ain't wealth.

The whole idea that continuously cutting the tax rates for the people at the top 1% of the wealth spectrum and how that will somehow create more wealth and increase governmental revenue is whole lotta bullshit that only a third grader will think is a great idea.

Here's why. Rich people do not create jobs.

Okay, now that you have gotten out of the way of any shrapnel that came from conservative heads exploding around you I will explain how things actually work.

Rich people are a consequence of capitalism, not the source.

In our system of capitalism businesses are successful because they provide a product or service to the people. The consumer decides the value of the product or service through choice, they will buy it if the product is worth the price, if not they will go to a competitor. In our society choice is the greatest tool and the consumer is the greatest asset.

Businesses can produce widgets to sell all day, but if no one has the money to buy them, that business will fail. That is why the middle class is so important, the middle class holds up the top and keeps the bottom from falling out. When the middle class has disposable income it can use to buy products and services those businesses that provide them reap the reward, that in turn puts money into government coffers through progressive taxation that fund roads and bridges, schools and firehouses, teachers, cops, firemen, post office workers, well you get the picture. It helps keep all those people into middle class jobs, which feeds this circle of wealth.

What happens when you take that wealth out and shift it to the top? It just sits there for the most part. Yes some of it gets donated to good causes, some of it used to buy things like Yachts, but most of it sits there, usually somewhere in the Caymans. It literally leaves that closed circle of wealth I described above. That's a big problem, less wealth in the system means our roads and bridges start to fall apart, teachers and firemen get laid off and the poor get essential services cut, and government debt soars. Sound familiar?

Now if you're a conservative reader that is still reading this far, first off, Kudos to you. You're probably saying "Silly Lib, poor people don't create jobs. *snort* I want to say that is one of the most simplistic, idiot statements that comes from the right. Ever heard of a guy named Bill Gates? He didn't start rich, he was an innovator, built computers in his garage, and he sure wasn't getting capital gains. Yet I'm pretty sure most of you are reading this on a machine with Microsoft Windows installed.

Henry Ford wasn't rich, Thomas Edison wasn't rich, but they all had another thing in common, they created something which led to jobs. The rich candle makers didn't innovate, they wanted to keep selling candles, the light bulb replaced those candles and therefore created new jobs, because light bulbs led to lamps, fluorescent light bulbs and whole world of new stuff that also needed people to make them, poof, jobs!

Henry Ford created the mass assembly line and good paying jobs, therefore allowing regular people to buy his cars, which made him quite wealthy. History is replete with regular people with an idea that challenges or replaces an older idea and creates a tidal wave or new jobs and innovation.

Few of those people started out wealthy, and few of the wealthy innovate and therefore, create jobs.

So why are we as a nation rewarding those who don't create new jobs, or innovate and create new ideas and are already extremely rich off older ideas and have no reason to change the status quo?

Because big business has bought those who create tax policy, this is why regular people with new ideas are crushed. Why solar and wind and other "green" energy technologies are underfunded and constantly derided by the corporate media and the right wing. I've heard of many stories of regular guys in their garages creating cars that will run on water or have created their own bio diesels or even converted their cars into electric powered vehicles. Yet they are constantly crushed by a business and state that is profiting massively off keeping things the way they are.


Supply side is an effort to take from everyone else what the person taking it already has a lot of, it's literally Romney-hood.